Career Development Resources

Training opportunities at Harvard

Check out resources and trainings through Harvard Catalyst (career mentoring program for postdocs, panels on career pathways in clinical and translational research, in industry, etc.)
Lots of training opportunities on the Harvard Training Portal (trainings from the Center for Workplace Development, Professional Development, Research Administration, LinkedIn Learning… and a lot more!)
Free career events for postdocs and research associates on the Harvard Ed Portal.
Resources to make the most of your postdoc on the Harvard Chan School Career Office website
The Office of Faculty Affairs organizes various Orientations, Workshops and Courses for Postdoctoral fellows too.
Stay up to date with all the events happening at the Harvard Chan School, by exploring the ENGAGE platform.

Career Development during your time at Harvard

Make sure that you set up your Career Development Plan & Annual Review Process with your advisor as required by the Office of Faculty Affairs of the Harvard Chan School
Career resources for postdocs from the Office of Postdoctoral fellows (Harvard Medical School)
CareerConnect is a portal set up by Harvard for job, fellowship and internship search. Feel free to create a profile on this portal and also check out e-mails from the Office for Career Advancement.
- Postdocs do not have access (yet) to the Career Coaching services from CareerConnect. If you think/feel like it would be a great opportunity for you to have a coach, you can have a look at ICF Find a Coach, a database of professional career/leaderships coaches that can be searched by geographic region or expertise in certain industries

Creating an Individual Development/Career Plan

Make sure that you set up your Career Development Plan & Annual Review Process with your advisor as required by the Office of Faculty Affairs of the Harvard Chan School
Why you should craft multiple plans for your future career, by Karin Bodewits, Science 2020
The Career Toolkit of Office of Career & Professional Development is of great help too!
The Intelligent Career (know why, how and with whom you want to work), by Sarah Blackford
Strengths finder, a tool that can help to clarify and label your strengths which is very helpful in communicating your headline on LinkedIn and in your resume
The VIA Institute Character also offers a free survey and various resources for you to get to know/anchor in your own strengths
16 Personalities offers a free survey to have an overview of your personality (offers more personality types than the MBTI as well as loads of articles to help you reach your personal goals)
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts, by Brené Brown – excellent for identifying your values, communicating them, and finding the behaviors that support or undermine them
Science Careers created a tool to set up an Individual Development Plan (skill, interest and value examination, determine and explore potentially suitable career paths)
Black Hole Focus: How Intelligent People Can Create a Powerful Purpose for Their Lives, by Isaiah Hankel, also offers motivation and tools to help you define what a purposeful career means to you

Advice to write Articles & Communicate your Science

The Office of Faculty Affairs organizes a lot of Workshops and Courses on the topic!
Tweeting, blogging, insta-gramming and more with FromTheLabBench
How to make the most of ResearchGate
Resources about online networking and LinkedIn, by Sabrina Woods
Get Inspired, get Technical, get Published and get Hired with CellMentor!
Need help to communicate your science or to write proposals and statements? The Communication Lab from the Broad Institute is here to help, with advice, examples and templates (CommKit) and counseling (Make an appointment).

Resources for Grant Writing & Funding Opportunities

The Art of Grantsmanship, a guide for grant writing
The Office of Faculty Affairs organizes a lot of Workshops and Courses on the topic!
Databases about grants & fellowships for graduate students, postdocs and junior faculty with Nature Careers
A very complete list of worldwide funding opportunities for postdocs
Funding opportunities for Minority Postdocs
Postdoctoral Funding Opportunities, Johns Hopkins University
Interesting Science Jobs and Funding resources from Sarah Blackford, who wrote a book about Career Development for Researchers in Biosciences. She also has an amazing blog!

Exploring and Applying for jobs in Academia

Hundreds of Academics give advice to their Younger Selves, Times Higher Education
A useful website to search for Research jobs in Europe: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs
Explore job positions on Nature Careers
Find your next Science and Research Job with CellCareer!
The Quick and Relatively Painless Guide to Your Academic Job, Yale University
The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph. D. into a Job, by Karen Kelsky
The Academic Job Search Handbook, by Julia Miller Vick, Jennifer S. Furlong and Rosanne Lurie
Doing a PhD is not enough! A guide to survival in science, by Peter J. Feibelmann
Workshops and talks about finding and applying for a job in Academia with the YouTube channel from NIH – OITE (Office of Intramural Training and Education)
How to Apply for an Academic Position (CV, statements, interview, etc.), jobs.ac.uk
Need help to communicate your science or to write proposals and statements? The Communication Labfrom the Broad Institute is here to help, with advice, examples and templates (CommKit) and counseling (Make an appointment).
Guide to writing cover letters, NIH-OITE
Guide to writing CVs and Résumés, NIH-OITE
Differences and Similarities between CVs in Academia vs Industry, Recruiter’s report
The Scientist’s Conundrum: CV, Resume or Something In-Between? by Laura Stark
Guide to writing letters for a faculty position, NIH-OITE
Article How to design a chalk talk – the million dollar sales pitch, Eric Lee Snapp,Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2019
Where Else do PhDs Work at Universities? by Jennifer Polk – no need to be a faculty to make a valuable contribution to your favorite Academic institution!
Beyond The Tenure Track – there are so many things you can do with a PhD

Exploring career options and successfully Transitioning outside of Academia

Your PhD has a lot of value outside of Academia too! Harvard partnered with VersatilePhDto help you get prepared for a career outside of academia. Login here!
Beyond The Tenure Track – there are so many things you can do with a PhD!
Closing the skill gap between academic training and non-academic work, Nick Riddiford
Need a step-by-step guide to transition outside of academia? The Salmon Leap, by Matteo Tardelli, is the cookbook you need!
Black Hole Focus: How Intelligent People Can Create a Powerful Purpose for Their Lives, by Isaiah Hankel, also offers motivation and tools to help you define what a purposeful career means to you
More Books to help your job search, From PhD to Life
YouTube channel from Cheeky Scientist– Advice about transitioning outside of academia (from exploring the market to getting hired). You can also listen to their podcasts on their online radio, where they interview PhDs who successfully transitioned outside of academia and cover a broad range of topics, from résumés to the ins and outs of specific industrial positions.
YouTube channel from NIH – OITE– Career Development, Transitioning to industry, etc.
Scismic is a profile/job-matching platform created by scientists to enable other scientists to create a profile which will be matched to job offers from industry in the US
How to ask for an Informational Interview and Get a Yes!, The Muse
A step-by-step guide on Informational Interviews, NIH-OITE
Resources about online networking and LinkedIn, Sabrina Woods
PhD Career Networking Group on LinkedIn– this LinkedIn group shares a lot of job postings/good information – all scientific backgrounds are welcome!
Exploring career options and Networking with PhDs who successfully transitioned outside of Academia, via io and smarttribe.io
Join the INetNYC network (also on LinkedIn) to meet with postdocs from New York City, and be informed of career events in and outside Academia (Science Diplomacy, Consulting, Application scientist, Regulations, Research & Development, Medical Writing, Medical Science Liaison, etc.)
Find your next Science and Research Job with CellCareer!
Explore your options, get CV templates and more with ac.uk!
Guide to writing cover letters, NIH-OITE
Guide to writing CVs and Résumés, NIH-OITE
The Scientist’s Conundrum: CV, Resume or Something In-Between? by Laura Stark
Differences and Similarities between CVs in Academia vs Industry, Recruiter’s report
Writing a Resume for a Job in Industry, YouTube video by Biomed Badass
cohelps you compare your resume and cover letter to the posted job description (very useful since the 1st round of application screening is done by a robot army now)
How to Succeed in a Virtual Interview, Indeed
Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed, by Anthony Medley

Resources about Management, Leadership, Coaching, Networking… and More!

Managing your time with Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, a book written by Cal Newport
Interesting resources about leadership, coaching and development
An interesting talk about Management for Scientists
More training opportunities on this topic on popular web-platforms: edx.org, Coursera (and the Harvard Training Portal as well!)
Get Inspired, get Technical, get Published and get Hired with CellMentor!
Strategies and Trends for Today’s Job Search, CareerSherpa
Job searching during challenging times, Sabrina Woods
Writing a professional email, NIH-OITE
Career resources, events and networking with MassBio
Career advice with The Muse
Join the Association of Women In Science to network and advocate towards more Equity in Science
Join the INetNYC network (also on LinkedIn) to meet with postdocs from New York City, and be informed of career events in and outside Academia (Science Diplomacy, Consulting, Application scientist, Regulations, Research & Development, Medical Writing, Medical Science Liaison, etc.)
Join us on LinkedIn and join other groups on LinkedIn, Twitter and so on to stay tuned on topics of interest to you!